Today, at the NATO Summit in Brussels, ministers of defence from Estonia, Latvia and Denmark signed a joint declaration of intention for the creation of the headquarters for Multinational Division North. In addition, the joint declaration of intention was signed in the capacity of contributing countries by Canada, Great Britain and Lithuania.
Multinational Division North staff is a military command centre, to which Estonia, Denmark and Latvia are contributors. The long-term goal is that all of the framework nations with battle groups stationed in the Baltic Republics and Poland will contribute to the staff. The division staff will be subordinate to the Multinational Division North East (MNDNE), located in Szczecin, Poland.
‘This is a natural development in the reinforcing of NATO’s deterrence and defence,’ said Minister of Defence Jüri Luik. ‘While the Allies decided at the Wales Summit to create NATO Force Integration Units and in Warsaw to bring Allied combat groups to the Baltic Republics and Poland, then now we are able to talk about a comprehensive military staff that is focused on Latvia and Russia,’ added Luik.
The need for this type of staff is especially acute in a situation in which Allied battalions have been stationed in the Baltic Republics and Poland, and have to work with and carry out trainings with local defence forces.
“The Baltic Sea region is currently one NATO's most vulnerable regions, and it is important that the command structure of the Alliance would correspond to actual dangers and that NATO would be capable of leading large-scale collective defence operations,’ noted Minister of Defence Luik.
With an eye on logistics, maintaining communications and the planned area of responsibility of the staff, the staff will begin, on the basis of offering military advice, to be located simultaneously in Latvia (Adaži) and Denmark, whereas the Force Integration Unit located in Denmark would be ready for rapid deployment in a crisis situation.
A division is a military command level comprised of 2-4 brigade sized units and various support units, with the next level of command being the corps.
The division staff will provide a continuous operative overview of regional activities, manage the brigades under its command, and coordinate, plan and synchronise the training exercises to be carried out, as well as operations with various agencies and neighbouring units. It will also carry out the training of its subordinate units, while ensuring their all-around support.
The staff will be operational in September of this year, achieving initial operational capability in the first half of 2019 and full operational capability in the middle of 2020.
The size of the division staff and its support units will be approximately 300 people.
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